The Future

Album: The Future (1994)
Play Video

Songfacts®:

  • Many of Cohen's songs are inspired by music heard in churches, synagogues and mosques. He explained in the April 1993 issue of Song Talk: "There's a line in 'The Future': 'When they said repent I wonder what they meant.' I understand that they forgot how to build the arch for several hundred years. Masons forgot how to do certain kinds of arches, it was lost. So it is in our time that certain spiritual mechanisms that were very useful have been abandoned and forgotten. Redemption, repentance, resurrection. All those ideas are thrown out with the bathwater. People became suspicious of religion plus all these redemptive mechanisms that are very useful."
  • This was prominently used on the soundtrack for Oliver Stone's 1994 film Natural Born Killers along with two other Leonard Cohen songs "Waiting for the Miracle" and "Anthem."

Comments: 3

  • Lige from The OzarksAnd the white man dancing...
  • Jimmy from Belfast, United Kingdomit's a really powerful way to end that film..a brilliant title track given the nature of the movie but gawd is it bleak.
  • Chad Dylan from Los Angeles, CaOmg. I heard this song in 'Natural Born Killers'.
see more comments

Editor's Picks

Curt Kirkwood of Meat Puppets

Curt Kirkwood of Meat PuppetsSongwriter Interviews

The (Meat)puppetmaster takes us through songs like "Lake Of Fire" and "Backwater," and talks about performing with Kurt Cobain on MTV Unplugged.

Paul Stanley of Kiss, Soul Station

Paul Stanley of Kiss, Soul StationSongwriter Interviews

Paul Stanley on his soul music project, the Kiss songs with the biggest soul influence, and the non-make-up era of the band.

80s Music Quiz 1

80s Music Quiz 1Music Quiz

MTV, a popular TV theme song and Madonna all show up in this '80s music quiz.

Keith Reid of Procol Harum

Keith Reid of Procol HarumSongwriter Interviews

As Procol Harum's lyricist, Keith wrote the words to "A Whiter Shade Of Pale." We delve into that song and find out how you can form a band when you don't sing or play an instrument.

Bible Lyrics

Bible LyricsMusic Quiz

Rockers, rappers and pop stars have been known to quote the Bible in their songs. See if you match the artist to the biblical lyric.

Don Dokken

Don DokkenSongwriter Interviews

Dokken frontman Don Dokken explains what broke up the band at the height of their success in the late '80s, and talks about the botched surgery that paralyzed his right arm.